Stranger Than You Dreampt It
by TheologyDiscography
Summary: Draco wishes his life could be different, but has no hope that it could be. Will Harry change his mind? lyrics from the Phantom of the Opera


_**Stranger than you dreamt it - **_

_**Can you even dare to look or bear to think of me: **_

_**This loathsome gargoyle, who burns in hell, **_

_**But secretly yearns for heaven, **_

_**Secretly ... **_

_**Secretly ...**_

_**Fear can **_

_**Turn to love - you'll learn to see,**_

_**To find the man behind the monster: this ... **_

_**Repulsive carcass, who seems a beast, **_

_**But secretly dreams of beauty, **_

_**Secretly ... **_

_**Secretly ...**_

Draco sat in the window, staring out at the Gryffindors out playing in the snow, oblivious to his gaze. 'Just once, it would be nice to be able to just forget everything and play for a while.' But he never had been able to do that. His father always made sure he remembered his responsibilities and duties as his son. 'They wouldn't accept me now anyway.' All the Gryffindors hated him for how he'd treated them on his father's orders. Especially the Golden Trio.

The Dark Lord was a terror; he'd seen enough to know that from his father's attitude. But it wasn't like he had any choice about it. If he'd been somebody else, he could have defied his father and joined the light side, but he was Draco Malfoy, and the light side hated him. And he didn't know if he'd be able to defy his father anyway; all his life, he'd automatically done whatever his father wanted to. His father never hurt him, though he knew it was whispered, but the slightest hint of disapproval from his father was enough to make him totally regret whatever he'd done to earn the disapproval.

Harry looked up suddenly and caught a glimpse of silver-blond hair through the window. He frowned; he'd seen the sadness in Draco's eyes lately, and it confused him. As far as anyone knew, Draco was following the path he wanted, so why did it look like it upset him? According to rumor, he was to get the Dark Mark when he returned home over Easter Break, but then, according to rumor, Lucius beat him, and Harry didn't think that was true. He acted wrong for his problem to be physical abuse. Emotional abuse, maybe. If you looked past the outside layer of his arrogance and demeaning sarcasm, you could almost see a desperate hunger for affection. If the only way he got affection was by pleasing his father . . . that explained a lot of his behavior.

"Malfoy." Draco spun at the voice calling his name. He winced when he saw who it was.

"What do you want, Potter," he spat, wishing he could just have a decent conversation with him for once. He'd always wanted to befriend Potter, since the first time he'd seen him in Diagon Alley. But as soon as his father realized that the Boy Who Lived was in Draco's year, he had made it clear that friendship was not an option. Not only was his father angry that Harry Potted had cast down the Dark Lord as an infant, but he'd known that his return was imminent, and didn't want his only heir caught in the crossfire.

"I need to talk to you." And he pushed Draco into an empty room. There was a fire blazing in the fireplace, startling him, because this was a relatively unused section of the castle. He looked over at Potter to find him smiling.

"W-what?" He mentally slapped himself for the stutter, pulling his shoulders back and his head up haughtily. "What do you think you have to talk about with me?" he asked snidely.

"You're favorite subject; you."

"Me? What about me?!"

Harry turned and looked into his eyes. "There's always a choice, you know."

"What _are_ you talking about, Potter?"

"When I look at you, I see fear in your eyes. Especially if anybody has said anything about old Tom. You're afraid of him." He silenced Draco with a look. "And you'd be stupid not to be. He's insane, and you know it. I know your father wants you to serve him, but is that what _you_ want?"

"We're not all as lucky as you are, Potter. Some of us don't have a choice." He hadn't meant to say that. He hadn't meant to admit that he wasn't enthusiastic about his future servitude, but the way Potter was acting confused him. He was acting like . . . like he actually . . . _cared_.

"There's _always_ a choice, Malfoy." Harry walked over and put his hands on Draco's shoulders, and Draco didn't push him away, he almost curled into the touch despite himself. Harry smiled softly and pulled him into a hug. Draco stiffened, but still didn't pull away.

_"What are you doing, Potter?" _he yelped. Harry chuckled.

"It's called a hug. Y'know, gesture of comfort or affection?"

"I know what a hug is, idiot. The question is: why are you hugging _me_?"

"Because you strike me as someone who hasn't had nearly enough hugs in their life."

_"How 'bout I just strike you?" _Draco muttered under his breath. Harry merely chuckled.

"I'd rather not. I don't want to fight with you. I never did, really."

"Then why didn't you take my hand, that first day?"

"Because I didn't like your attitude. You reminded me of my cousin, and I didn't want to be around anyone who reminded me of him." Harry pulled back so they could see each other's faces. "He hated me, and he made my life miserable. How was I to know if you were different from him? All I saw was that you had the same attitude."

"Oh. I was just action the way my father said I should."

"I know. But I didn't then. Everything you do, it's because your father says you should, isn't it? It's the only way you get his approval."

"How- how did you know that?" Draco hid his face in Harry's shoulder, to avoid the look of pity in Harry's eyes.

"From the way you act. You know everyone says you're abused. Most people think it was physical though, but I never did think that really fit. But emotionally . . .. Emotionally, everything fits. You do whatever it takes to gain your father's approval. Even though a lot of what you do ends up hurting you more than it hurts anybody else, you do it anyway. But tell me this, Draco. When you're a Death Eater, what will it take to get approval? Do you think you could do that?" He shivered at the compassion in Harry's voice. He had never thought about that. "You're not the kind of person who'd enjoy doing that kind of stuff. You don't even like fighting with me, and we never seriously hurt each other. C'mon Draco, you know that isn't for you."

"What did you just call me?"

"Draco?" Harry sounded confused now.

"Why did you call me that? Why are you acting like you care about me now? You hate me, I know you do." Draco tried to pull away. Harry held tight.

"I already told you, I don't hate you, and I never wanted to fight with you. I just get angry when you keep picking at us, like you're really better than us because of your last name. Name doesn't matter. How much money you have doesn't matter. All that matters is what you make of your life. At the moment, you're drifting, and if you don't do something to stop it, you'll end up a mediocre Death Eater, and probably get yourself killed. Or you could work with me, and at the least, you won't get killed for not having the heart to complete a mission."

Draco pulled away again, and this time, Harry let him go.

"I need to think."

"Alright. Come talk to me if you want to. Even if you just need someone to listen, and to bounce ideas off of. I'll be there for you."

Draco sat in his room; idly playing with a small silver dagger his father had given him as a birthday present. On his desk before him sat a small silver bowl full of water. He'd been toying with the idea for a couple of days, and now he was working up the courage to begin scrying the future. It was dangerous, and left him exhausted, but he didn't see any other way to figure out what to do. He wasn't even sure why it was so important to him, all his life he'd been coasting, allowing his father to choose his actions. But his conversation with Harry had awakened a desire to choose his own path. He didn't understand it, but he didn't argue with it.

Gripping the knife decisively, he cut a shallow line across the pad of his thumb, dribbling the blood across the surface of the water as he spoke the incantation.

"If I join the Death Eaters." Pictures rose up in the basin, death and destruction, his father grown cold and distant, and eventually, himself flying backwards in the green light of the Killing Curse.

"If I join Potter." The basin cleared, replaced with pictures of hiding, ducking curses, a Dark house, talking with Potter . . .. His head started to spin, and he ended the spell quickly, before he lost more energy than he could afford. He idly cleaned the blood off of his knife, ignoring the throbbing in his head to think about what he had seen.

He _would _die if he joined the Death Eaters, but he had no assurances that he'd live if he joined Potter.

He was startled from his contemplation be a rapping on his bedroom doorframe. He looked up to see the only person who could enter his rooms without his permission; his godfather and head of house, Severus Snape.

Wordlessly, Snape handed him a goblet. He took a mouthful and grimaced. Snape's own foul concoction to replenish the lost blood and restore energy.

"You were scrying again, weren't you?" his godfather asked in a blank tone of voice. "What did you see?"

"Stuff. Did you charm my knife or something?" He looked up. "You did, didn't you?"

"I swore to you that I would protect you. That includes from your foolishness in scrying and not telling anybody. I've come in after you scryed and found you half-dead far too many times. " He sighed. "I never should have taught you that spell," he muttered under his breath.

"Sev, what side are you on? Honestly?" He looked away, not answering the question. Draco pouted.

"Draco, both sides believe I spy for them; to tell you which side I truly spy for would put me in danger, especially since I don't know what side you favor." Draco nodded his understanding, but kept the petulant frown on his face.

"Finish your potion and go to sleep. I'll see to it you're excused form the rest of your classes."

"Thank you, Sev."

_Potter,_

_Meet me in the Come-and-go room? I need to talk to you. 7:00 tonight. It might take a while though. I'm really confused, and I need your help to sort through everything; I'll explain then._

_Sincerely,_

_Draco Malfoy_

Harry read over the letter slowly, unaware of Ron's impatient glare. Then said impatient redhead snatched the note out of his hands.

"Malfoy? What's Malfoy doing writing you?!" Ron whispered furiously.

"Don't worry about it Ron. And before you ask; yes, I'm going, and no, you're not."

"Why not? You can't mean to go talk to that ferret by yourself!"

"Yes, I certainly can, and I will. Your temper'll mess things up right now. And his won't make anything better. I want him to trust me, and he won't if I start dragging you along whenever I talk to him. That would imply that I don't trust him."

"Are you saying you do?"

"I'm saying nothing at this point. When things get to a point that there's actually something there, I'll explain it to you. Until then, I can only ask you to be patient and trust me. Can you do that, Ron?"

A resentful silence followed. "I guess so, Harry. But don't ask me to wait too long."

"You're late, Potter. I almost thought you weren't coming; that you were just going to leave me waiting here." Draco pouted, pointing to the clock on a mantle above the large fireplace. It was five minutes past seven. Harry came to sit beside him on the couch.

"Sorry. I had a last minute disagreement with Ron. He was insisting on coming with me and hiding under the invisibility cloak so he could hear what you were saying." Harry stared crossly into the distance.

"Yet you still think I have a chance of being accepted by your people?"

"Ron'll understand once I explain it to him. It's not like I'm trying to shag you or anything, so he'll be OK with it." He reached a hand out and laid it on the blonde's shoulder. "Anyway, you said you needed to talk?" Draco nodded.

"Yeah. I did a scrying yesterday. And honestly, I saw a lot of stuff that scared the crap out of me. If I join the Death Eaters, I will die. I don't know when or what for, which means it's inevitable. But nothing said I'd survive helping you. I would have asked for more, but I ran out of energy. As it was, Sev felt the power drain, and came and force-fed me a disgusting potion. Which is why I wasn't in class, in case you noticed."

"I wondered. But I didn't have a chance to ask you before I got your note, so I decided I'd ask you later, then you tell me without even asking!" Harry grinned. "So what did you see?"

"Well, when I asked for a vision of if I joined the Death Eaters, I saw a lot of really horrible stuff, me doing a lot of horrible things, and my father didn't care about me anymore, and then I was killed." He couldn't hold back the tears that came at the thought of how cold his father had been in the vision. Harry reached over and pulled him close, holding him protectively to his chest. Draco nestled into his arms, feeling oddly comfortable. Nobody had held him like that since he was a child. "And when I asked about joining you, I saw a lot of running, ducking, and hiding, and this really creepy Dark house-"

"The Black Mansion," Harry interjected.

"The Black Mansion? How do you know?"

"Because it's the only Dark house associated with the Order. We're cleaning it up, but it's slow going."

"Anyway, and us talking, then I had to drop the spell."

"What were we talking about?" Harry asked curiously.

"No idea. Sound is too hard, and most of the time I don't want to know what they're saying anyway."

"Oh. Do you do this often of something?"

"I used to scry my father all the time, but I don't anymore because I hate the sight of him abasing himself before that lunatic."

"Lunatic?"

"Yeah, everyone knows he's insane."

There was silence for a while.

"Draco? Have you made up your mind yet?" He frowned slightly. Did he know what he wanted to do? He thought for a while.

"Yes."

"And what's your decision?" Harry asked gently.

"I'll help you. I will not disgrace myself like my father has. I bow to nobody, you should know that by now." He grinned playfully. For once, he felt like he had complete control of his life. It was a little frightening, but at the same time, it felt good to be free.

**HDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHDHD**

and yes, i just had to put that little jab about all the HD yaoi in there. i mean, i love HD yaoi, but you never see stories about them that arn't yaoi. or at least i don't. if you see any good HD brotherly stories, please let me know, and i'll go read them.


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